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Variety of Human Lot. “‘One and the same Spirit works all things, distributing to each his own gifts according to His pleasure.’ Therefore, he says, let us not be troubled or grieved, thinking to ourselves, ‘Why have I received this and not received that?’ Neither must we scrutinize the doings of the Holy Spirit. For if you know that He has shown you favor out of kindness, considering that out of the same kindness He has also put a limit to His gift, acquiesce and rejoice in what you have received, and be not downhearted about what you have not received, but rather give thanks that your gift is not beyond your power. If it behooves us not to be over-eager in spiritual things, how much less in those of the flesh; but we should be at ease, and not be disturbed because one man is rich and another poor. In the first place, not every rich man gets his wealth from God, but many become rich through injustice and avarice and graspingness. For how could He, Who commands us not to lay up riches, have given that which He prohibited our taking?”“‘Why is it that a man is rich, being bad, and another man is poor, being just?’ We may easily explain this, and say that neither does the just man suffer any harm from his poverty, which is a source of greater merit to him, and that the unjust man, unless he be converted, possesses in his riches a store of wrath, and that, in place of chastisement, the riches of many men have often been the cause of evil to them, and led them into a thousand abysses. But God leaves them these riches, showing everywhere the free action of Divine choice, everywhere teaching other men not to fight nor to strive for money. […]”“We act as a man would act, who, not being able to judge of physical beauty, but, ascribing everything to clothes and adornment, should pass over […] true comeliness and choose merely for fine dress. The great mass of men now do something of this kind in the matter of goodness and badness, by following their bad nature on account of its outward attraction, and by turning away from the good nature, which is blooming and beautiful, on account of its unadorned comeliness, the very reason why they should have chosen it.”
